A Stroke of Bad Luck

A Song of Ice and Fire, and all associated media, are the property of George R. R. Martin.

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Lyanna Stark had to resist the urge to flinch as a crow cawed overhead. By the Old and the New, what was she thinking?! She shouldn't be out here, she should be at Riverrun, commiserating with her brother over their betrothals (although Bran, at the very least, didn't have a whore for a betrothed). What in the world had possessed her too—

"Lyanna?" a soothing, musical voice broke through her mind. It was wrong—he was married!—but Lyanna was a romantic at heart, and the sight of Rhaegar Targaryen appearing from the dark woods, violet eyes gleaming within the dark confines of his hooded cloak set her soul aflame.

She rushed forward to meet him, falling into his open arms. "Rhaegar," she whispered, clutching his shoulders, "we shouldn't have done this. It's madness!"

"Oh," her Silver Prince chuckled, "haven't you heard." He leaned down, his breathe tickling her ear and sending chills down her spine, "Targaryens and madness are dear friends." She laughed at the poor jape, only to tense up upon seeing two dark-cloaked figures enter her vision.

"Don't worry," he said, rubbing circles into her back, "that's just Sers Arthur and Oswell. They will not betray me—betray us."

"Us?" Lyanna repeated evenly, even as the thought alone drove her wild.

"Lyanna," he stepped back, cupping her chin and lifting it up so they could gaze into each other's eyes—each other's souls. "Come with me."

"Yes," she thought with glee, "take me away!." But alas, she was a Stark. She had her duty. Aloud, holding back tears, she replied, "I cannot. I cannot betray my father—our ancestors, our people—so."

His gaze softened, "Lyanna," he whispered, leaning closer, "Why should we let the expectations of others keep us from what is right?" And oh, how right it was. Lyanna closed her eyes, lifting her head up to meet his. "Please, let me—glurk!"

Lyanna jerked back at the sudden sound. She opened her eyes, gasping upon seeing his bulging eyes and bloody mouth. He fell upon her, his weight pushing her down and granting her a clear view of the arrow sticking out of his back, his Kingsguard lying on the ground, arrows in them as well.

She screamed, frantically shoving the Prince's corpse away.

She never saw the arrow that pierced her throat, but she certainly felt it.

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"Ha! See, told you it would work!" Walys crooned, waving his bow excitedly in the air as he bounced atop the branch he say on.

Harald shivered as he eyed the corpses before them. "Still think we'd have been able to just rob them and leave.

To his right, Martin was already climbing down his chosen tree. "Agh, quit your belly-aching! It worked." That was true.

Harald quickly made his way down, Walys jumping down with a hearty laugh. Harald flinched, and shushed Walys. "Stop that!" he hissed, "trying to get us killed?!"

Walys scoffed, roughly dropping his arm around Harald's shoulders. "Calm down. It's the dead of night, no one's stupid enough to just wander about the Riverlands. Well," he grinned crookedly, "not anymore."

They'd reached the corpses—the one laying atop another, specifically—when Harald shoved Walys away. "Bugger off," he groused. He paused, however, at the sight of Martin staring at the corpse staring up at the sky. A woman—barely so at that. Poor thing. Still, better she be dead by their hands than raped by another's.

He gently jostled Martin. "You know her?" he asked.

The man shook his head, "No. She just…I've got a sister, around her age." Martin sighed, muttering a quick prayer and closing her eyes with his hand.

"Seven Hells!" Walys groaned from behind them "What's with you two?" He squatted, reaching for the corpse atop the woman. "They're dead! Stop your whining and start stripping them of theirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…" he trailed off.

Martin scowled, turning towards Walys, "What's with youuuuuuuuuuuuu…" he trailed off. Harald, more curious than anything else, turned to face Walys as well. He followed his fellow killers gazes towards the man who Walys was holding up by his hood.

Harald's heart stopped at the sight of silver hair.

"…Shit," he whispered.

"N-Now now," Walys whimpered, "let's not be stupid. There're loads of people with silver hair. I mean, sure, there's the Targaryens, but there's at least a couple more Crownlanders that have it. Plus, have you ever seen a Volantese whore? Some of them have silver hair as well." He would have rambled some more, had Martin not pulled the corpses head up further, revealing dark purple eyes.

"Shit," Harald repeated.

Walys dropped the corpse—the Crown Prince's corpse—with a shriek. He fell on his ass, scrambling backwards. "Fuck!" he cursed. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!"

"We killed the Prince," Harald whispered. "We killed the Prince!"

"And a Stark." Harald whipped his head down towards Martin. The man had moved the woman's cloak a touch, revealing a jeweled pin in the shape of a wolf at the collar of dress.

"…So they were fucking," Walys said, his previous despair replaced by curiosity.

Harald turned with a scowl, "Not the time!" He looked back down at Martin, "We need to do something!"

"What?!" Martin growled. "March up to Riverrun and tell Lord Tully, 'Here, have some corpses'?!"

"Boys," Walys said, voice infuriatingly calm, "there's a simple solution to our problem."

"And what's that?"

"Strip the bodies and leave 'em to rot."

Harald gasped, intensifying in pitch as Martin replied, "That could work."

"Are you…you can't be serious?!" Harald shouted as Martin shoved the Prince's corpse aside, Walys moving over to one of the men away from them.

Martin stopped removing the Prince's cloak, staring flatly at Harald, "Do you have any better ideas?"

Harald opened to his mouth to reply, only to falter because, well, he didn't. Thus, he bent down over the woman, "Just remember to ditch the jewelry—pluck off the jewels if you can, but don't pocket any pieces."

They stripped the corpses of everything quickly enough, even taking the time to drag them a bit away from each other in an effort to cover their tracks."

Martin sighed, running a hand through his hair, "Ok, I think we're—Walys, no!"

The crook groaned, clutching the Sword of the Morning closer to his body. "But it glows white! Think of the coin someone'd pay for that!"

"Why would someone pay you for one of the most recognizable weapons in the Seven Kingdoms?" Harald asked with a raised brow. "They'd sooner kill you and keep it for themselves. Or put you in chains and drag you through Dorne." Walys scowled. "Just pitch the damn thing." The crook huffed but threw the sword away with all his might. After that, they carefully fled the area.

It was after two hours of silent travel that Martin grabbed both Harald and Walys by their shoulders. "We take this to our graves!" he intoned. Harald and Walys were all too quick to agree.

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Alas, life was not so simple for our—ah, who am I kidding. In the grand scheme of the narrative, after serving their initial purpose the Smallfolk don't really matter. Odd, despite the insistence that they're just as important as the lords we follow, but I digress.

Anyway, after Lyanna wasn't found in the morning at Riverrun, her brother assuaged Lord Tully that she's just being a child and would show up to eat eventually. It wasn't until around noon that he really started to worry.

Thus, Brandon led a search party to find his wayward sister. And they did—her chewed upon corpse, at any rate. But before Brandon could even begin to despair at his sister's fate, his party also found the corpses of Arthur Dayne, Oswell Whent, and Rhaegar Targayen close by (our three crooks weren't very good draggers).

While Brandon fell into shock, Hoster Tully did the responsible thing and sent out Ravens to Houses Stark, Whent, Dayne, and Targaryen. The first three acted like any reasonable family would—rage, sorrow, the whole shebang. House Targaryen…less so.

To be certain, Rhaella Targayren mourned the death of her eldest child. But Elia found herself stuck between a state of sorrow over his death, and rage over the only reason he would have travelled all the way to Riverrun in secret only to die next to Lyanna Stark. Viserys, Rhaenys, and the newborn Aegon were all too young to act appropriately to the news.

Aerys's was the most gleeful response. He was sitting upon the Iron Throne upon receiving the news. When he did, he was oddly silent for a long while. And then, he laughed. A loud, booming laughter that echoed throughout the Red Keep.

Unfortunately for him, his laughter also came with the consequence of making him lose his balance. Ended up falling upon the blades of the Iron Throne, where he was skewered like a pig, laughing and bleeding over his ancestral seat until finally dying. (Which also means that Daenerys would never come into being, because timelines).

Of course, they were not the only ones to hear of the untimely demises. Robert Baratheon's sorrow and rage shook the heavens themselves. He got drunk—far drunker than ever before—and ran out into the woods, whereupon he ran afoul a wild boar. But at this point in time, Robert Baratheon is a buff young man in the prime of his life. So, he just grabbed the beast by its tusks and ripped it clean in two. Super cool, super gross. Following that, because he believed that there was nothing left for him in Westeros, he decided to abandon everything and join an Esossi circus as a strongman (does Essos have circuses? Yeah, of course they do! They've got a mage guild and assassination training grounds; they've got to have at least one goddamn circus.) He actually did pretty well, tearing apart animals with his bare hands. Until he tried to do the same to an elephant, but that's another story.

Who else would have been affected by this…right, Lannisters. So, Tywin, playing some odd long-game, decided that Cersei should travel to the Red Keep to act as either Elia or Rhaella's lady-in-waiting—either would have worked, he didn't realy care. But Cersei is…Cersei, and decided to spend her time fucking her brother. However, because she was not Queen, when they were found (and there's no fucking way they weren't found, what with the absurd number of secret passages built within the walls) Varys didn't have any incentive to keep their secret. So, Jaime and Cersei died (I mean, there may not have been a death penalty for incest, but I'm certain Jaime (whether at Cersei's insistence or of his own volition) would have entered a Trial by Combat to dispel the charges, but he either would have died to a superior foe (Gerold Whitetower, Barristan Selmy, etc.) or just, given up, since Jaime at that time wasn't the most internally confident of people. And then upon his death Cersei would have gone crazy and either committed suicide or be put down trying to kill whichever person killed Jaime).

Tywin took the news surprisingly well. He didn't rage, upon hearing of their crimes, decry it as lies and slander. He just locked himself in his solar for a week. When he did open his doors, the only thing he did was call for his family to attend him—even Tyrian. He called the dwarf forward and did something no one ever expected him to do. He picked the boy up and held him in his arms. Everyone was so stunned, they didn't even register him walking towards an open window, until he pitched Tyrian outside it. After which he followed his youngest child. Good times.

Let's see, what else…Ah, right, the Others! So, they were still a problem. The Wildlings and the Night's Watch had their little spat and all that, but in the end all anyone could do was just wait for the Others to march upon the wall. And they did. And…that's kind of it.

See, without an undead dragon (basing this off the show, now, since that's the only canon I can go off of after a certain point, thanks Dumb & Dumber) the Others couldn't stage a massive breach of the Wall. A couple Wights and White Walkers were able to sneak in at a time, but fire and Valyrian steel took care of them well enough.

A couple Night's Watchmen wondered why the Others never tried to cross the sea, on account of the fact that there's just wide-open water to the east. Turns out, Wights and White Walkers lock up when they come into contact with sea water. Their limbs contort into odd shapes and they just float atop the water like macabre ice cubes. Kind of hilarious.

Admittedly, things did get a smidge darker when the Night King (again, thanks Dumb & Dumber) arrived. But then some poor soul tripped atop the wall, ramming into a loose piece of scaffolding, broke it off, and crushed the Night King underneath (now some of you may call foul, but people were cool Arya 'Winter Soldier' Stark doing the deed and ignoring decades worth of foreshadowing and build-up, so shut it).

I feel like I'm still forgetting…something…starts with an 'N'…oh, Ned Stark, arguably the most important Stark of his generation (aside from his sister, who, if you'll recall, is dead). See, instead of being, forced to marry his brother's betrothed, he was able to marry Ashara Dayne, who he'd grown close to since the Tourney at Harrenhal (because, in all honesty, that theory is more interesting than the one that she and Brandon Stark shacked up at Harrenhal. Adds a bit more tragedy to his character, and also provides a neat parallel to Robb Stark's own rejection of Roslin Frey in favor of Talisa Maegyr/Jeyne Westerling). They got themselves a nice little hold in the North, and lived happy, blissful lives together.

Their firstborn child was a girl (who, if you'll recall, canonically existed), named Allyria (because that's just a fun little theory, isn't it?), but their firstborn son was named Jon because…uh…Constants and Variables. Yeah, that works.

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A/N: My first crack-fic. I'm so proud. Be sure to leave a review. Later.